An application is able to communicate with Allen-Bradley Logix5000 PLCs by means of a software driver through a standard PC Ethernet board.

It is possible to purchase the driver in Runtime, mode; the licence can be used for a single application.

ABXETH is a library for communicating with Allen-Bradley Logix5000 Controllers on Ethernet/IP™ (messaging Logix5000 on Ethernet/IP™).

ABXETH is supplied as a Win32 DLL library and it can be used in projects developed with different programming languages, such as:

• Microsoft Visual C/C++ (6.0 and higher)
• Microsoft Visual Basic 6.0
• Microsoft Visual Basic 2008
• Microsoft Visual C#

ABXETH manages:

1. communication with up to 100 Allen-Bradley Logix5000 controller
2. connection in "Direct Network Device" mode (connection to the controller via direct access to the Ethernet port of the controller itself)
3. connection in "CLX via backplane" mode (connection to the controller through access to an Ethernet communication module inserted in the backplane)
4. reading/writing of BOOL type (1 bit) in single or array mode
5. reading/writing of SINT type (8 bit) in single or array mode
6. reading/writing of INT type (16 bit) in single or array mode
7. reading/writing of DINT type (32 bit) in single or array mode
8. reading/writing of REAL type (32 bit virgola mobile) in single or array mode
9. retries on single channel in case of communication error
10. inactivity time on single channel in case of communication error

ABXETH has the following limits:

1. Maximum number of Allen-Bradley Logix5000 controllers connected is 100
2. "bridging" connection is not managed (connection to the controller via access to another controller with bridge function)
3. it does not manage the access to the fields of the structures
4. it does not handle fragmentation of requests
5. it does not handle multiple communication sessions